This invention relates generally to rotary press, and more particularly to a cutting and folding apparatus for rotary press, which is capable of producing various signatures by simple switching operations.
In the printing operation by a rotary press, a wide paper web is fed to a printing unit by a web feeder to undergo printing and, after drying, the printed web is fed to a folding machine to be formed into folded signatures. FIG. 1 shows by way of example a conventional folding machine for rotary press, wherein a paper web 1, which has been printed through the printing unit, is fed to a folding cylinder 5 through a drag roller 2, lead rollers 3, and nipping rollers 4. The web 1 is severed into a predetermined size between the folding cylinder 5 and a cutting cylinder 6 which is opposingly revolving thereagainst, and then folded into a 1/2 size between the folding cylinder 5 and a similarly opposingly revolving gripping cylinder 7, centrally along a line transverse to the direction of travel of the web 1, the folded paper being transferred by a delivery belt 8 to an impeller wheel 9 and discharged out of the apparatus by a conveyor 10. Where 1/2 of this size is desired, the folded signature is folded again centrally along a line parallel to the direction of travel by a chopper folder 11 which is provided at a position halfway of the length of the delivery belt 8, and discharged onto a fixed type conveyer 12 by an impeller wheel which is not shown. In this instance, the conveyor 10 is lowered to the position shown in phantom for connection to the paper discharging conveyer 12. The signature 13 discharged in this manner contains A3.times.4 pages as shown at (a) of FIG. 2 when the chopper 11 is not employed and A4.times.8 pages as shown at (b) when the signature is double-folded by the use of the chopper 11. Recently, there are considerable increases in the number of printed matter of small pagination such as A3.times.2 pages or A4.times.4 pages. In order to obtain such prints, for instance, two copies of A3.times.2 pages as shown at (c) of FIG. 2 with the above-mentioned folding apparatus, it becomes necessary to sever the fold 13a of the signature of A3.times.4 pages shown at (a). On the other hand, in order to obtain two signatures of A4.times.4 pages shown at FIG. 2 (d), it is necessary to sever the fold 13b of the signature of A4.times.8 shown at FIG. 2(d) and then to extract each signature one after another. This makes the operation complicated and inefficient and increases the cost of equipment due to the necessity for the provision of an additional cutting device. There has been developed a folding apparatus which is specifically designed to make signatures of A3.times.2 pages and A4.times.4 pages but it is unable to make other signatures, requiring installation of other folding and cutting apparatus in order to make different kinds of signatures.